Climb in S.J. home prices top in nation

San Joaquin County led the nation in housing price appreciation over the past year, the Federal Housing Finance Agency reported this week.

Reed Fujii

San Joaquin County led the nation in housing price appreciation over the past year, the Federal Housing Finance Agency reported this week.

The agency's House Price Index, based on single-family home repeat purchases or refinanced mortgages acquired or securitized by Fannie Mae or Freddie Mac, showed in the year ended Sept. 30 a 24 percent gain in housing prices in the county, known demographically as the Stockton-Lodi Metropolitan Area.

A separate, purchases-only index showed a 32 percent price gain for Stockton-Lodi, which also led the nation's 100 largest metro areas.

The price upswing, after years of San Joaquin County leading the nation in the opposite direction - topping the charts for foreclosures and underwater homeowners - is a good thing, said Jeffrey Michael, director of the Business Forecasting Center at University of the Pacific.

"After all these years of being at the bottom, the rebound is noteworthy," he said Wednesday. "It makes a big difference. It's directly related to the declining foreclosure rate."

And other California metros hard hit by the mortgage crisis are showing similar recoveries, the federal agency reported.

Solano, Merced and Stanislaus counties are ranked three, four and five for the highest housing appreciation in the past year, followed by the Sacramento-Roseville metro area at No. 6.

Overall, U.S. house prices remained strong in the third quarter, as prices rose 2 percent from the previous three months, the FHFA announced Tuesday.

It was the ninth consecutive quarterly price increase in the purchase-only House Price Index.

And among the 100 largest metro areas for purchases only, the Stockton-Lodi area led with a third quarter third increase of 8.3 percent.

Despite the strong annual and quarterly increases, Michael noted that San Joaquin County home prices have gained only modestly going back to the first quarter of 1991, when the index was begun.

"Our 50 percent appreciation looks like low-growth, Rust Belt areas like Detroit, Cleveland and Syracuse (N.Y.), whereas S.F. and San Jose have increased 173 to 189 percent over these 221/2 years," he said.

That has led to a precipitous price differential.

"The recent housing cost difference between the Bay Area and here is at an all-time record, actually a much larger difference than in the dot-com days," Michael said.